Venture Team

The Venture Team Program provides hands-on experience for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in evaluating the commercial potential of transitioning emerging technologies from laboratory to market. Teams assess commercial viability of faculty inventions and analyze intellectual property, regulatory landscape, and market. Teams pitch their recommended path for commercialization and compete in the annual Venture Team Competition for a $30,000 award towards advancing their technology.

BSC Venture Teams work closely with UCLA inventors and UCLA Technology Development Group to aid the technology transfer process. Since its inception in 2011, Venture Teams have performed feasibility studies to assess UCLA technologies and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from the biological sciences, medicine, engineering, business, and law have gained experience working on cross-functional teams and evaluating the translational positioning of UCLA technologies. This partnership offers students a unique opportunity to learn how people from different disciplines view and address problems.

The results from a Venture Team support faculty and technology transfer by providing an analysis of the:

Intellectual property and regulatory landscape

Market size and commercial hurdles

Recommended path for development and commercialization

Competition

The BSC has a close partnership with the UCLA Technology Development Group and we are here to assist the entrepreneurial community at UCLA in advancing their technologies to fulfill the promise of innovation for the public benefit. If you’re interested in exploring opportunities to translate your technology from the lab to the market where it can impact critical unmet needs, please submit your proposal to Samantha Le at samanthale@mednet.ucla.edu. Ready to submit your application? Please submit your application here.

Venture Teams Competition

– 5 Proof-of-Concept Grants Awarded
• 2011: 2 awards, $20,000 each

Both recipients, Richard Gatti,MD, & Arion Chatziioannou, PhD, have licensed their technologies and one has also signed a sponsored research agreement

• 2012: 1 award, $30,000

Xiao, Hu, PhD, has established a startup company, Neural Analytics, which has successfully developed a noninvasive method of measuring intracranial pressure called RapidICP and has raised substantial equity. The group also won the Mass Challenge Competition in 2013 and gained the opportunity to test RapidICP on the International Space Station.

• 2013: 1 award, $30,000

Robert Cameron, MD is developing a video-guided device that provides physicians with visual aid during the chest tube insertion process, greatly reducing the risk of pneumothorax. He has conducted successful outside fundraising to begin clinical trials shortly.

• 2014: 1 award, $30,000

Anahid Jewett, PhD., M.P.H., is initiating Phase I clinical studies on a compound that is able to protect teeth from the adverse side effects of commercial whitening agents.

2014 winners of our Venture Team CompetitionNAC: The Solution for Healthier and Whiter Teeth!

2014 Venture Team Judging Panel

2014 Venture Team Competition

2014 Venture Team Competition

Testimonials

“The Venture Team Program was a tremendous boost to our Visitube project by providing valuable team members, feedback and mentoring, and even money (if you win). Some team members have even remained on the project and successfully landed additional funding with a start-up device company soon to follow. This was all catalyzed by the Venture Team Program!” – Robert Cameron, Ph.D., Winner of 2013 Venture Team Competition for his technology, Video-Guided Chest Tube Insertion System.

“The program is fantastic in educating the students and inventors alike, as well as bringing exposure to innovation at UCLA.” – Massoud Akhtari Ph.D., Associate Professor of Semel Neuropsychiatric Institutes/NPI, Winner of 2015 Venture Team Competition for his technology, Visualization of Alzheimer’s Disease On MRI.